Business users need to consume a large amount of information quickly. With limited time to make decisions, they require information in a quick and easy to understand format. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical chart 10 prepared by a business intelligence reporting system. The chart 10 shows revenue for each region and year. However, this chart 10 may not have enough information. The business user may also need to know what the growth was from year to year. They may also require information regarding which territories contributed the most revenue overall.
In the past, business users would have to consume several charts or tables of data to get the information they require. This made the process of understanding the data both time consuming and error prone. Traditional charts are limited in space. They may miss some information. To provide all the information required in traditional charting methods can produce complex or long reports. It can also be difficult for a reader of the report to understand the relationships between disjoint data.